I took ecstasy at 15 and what happened next nearly destroyed me

Marcus Nicholas was just 13 when he started drinking and smoking cannabis at school. He went on to sell cannabis before later turning to ecstasy and cocaine, which led to a chronic addiction that consumed his life.

The 42-year-old, from Walton, told the ECHO how he was an “insecure and quiet kid,” who was bullied and fell into hanging around with an older crowd. He said: “It probably started at around the age 13, the drinking then led to smoking cannabis at school.

“A friend of mine’s brother was selling drugs and he was giving us cannabis to sell in school. So then I started selling cannabis and taking it, and drinking at a very young age. I ended up very unwell after drinking myself into oblivion. I had Crohn's disease, which put me in hospital at 15.

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“At that age, around 15 - 16 they told me I wouldn’t be able to drink anymore, but this was the age people started going out. I remember someone offering me an ecstasy tablet and remembering thinking ‘they didn't say don't have tablets’ and this is how I got onto class A drugs.

“I started taking and selling ecstasy and got more involved with drug dealing. I started drinking again at 18 and that is when I started taking and selling cocaine. That is when things started to go downhill.”

At the age of 19 Marcus’ daughter was born and just one year later his drink and drug addiction got “out of control". He said: “I was ruining relationships, going missing, destroying myself and then I ended up losing my house and broke my family up. My drug abuse went to another level.

“I started abusing steroids and ended up working on the doors, which led to even more crime, drug taking and addiction that went on for a long time. I was getting a lot of pressure from my mum and I reluctantly went to recovery services when I was 23. But things just carried on escalating and I lost everything.

“I hadn’t seen my kids for years, I was bankrupt, [I had a] suicide attempt and even after all of that I still carried on using, even after I tried to kill myself. Rock bottom for me would be death.”

However, eventually Marcus got to the point where he had had enough. He said: “I asked myself ‘have you had enough?’ Four years ago I hit that point, I asked myself that question and I stopped.

"I don't take anything, I don't even touch a cigarette now and I don’t battle or struggle with my addiction because I rewired my brain. All I get from them [drink and drugs] is pain and misery - why would I do that to myself?

For Lee Butler, 54, his battle was similar. From a young age Lee, from West Derby Village, would socially use drugs, which eventually turned into a "painful addition". He said: “It started as a social use of drugs around the rave scene.

"It was at the time the acid house rave scene kicked in and generations of people were swept into the scene and with that came ecstasy. And that was me, I was swept away with this whole sound and this whole scene. What started out as social use when I went to illegal raves, events up and down the country, led to abuse that developed into a painful addiction.”

During this time, Lee had met his wife and had children, but this didn’t stop his addiction. His ecstasy taking turned into cocaine abuse that affected his marriage and him being a dad. He told the ECHO how he “started going missing, turned psychotic, paranoid, and the social aspect disappeared". He said: “It became a very lonely addiction.

“It was painful and lonely misery with terrible consequences. The most painful part is as desperate as you are to stop you're incapable, that is when people lose hope.”

Lee was in and out of addiction services for 15 years, however eight years ago he had a “light bulb” moment and quit. He said he hasn’t touched drink or drugs since.

Marcus and Lee met each other while in rehab in their early twenties. Marcus told the ECHO how the friends went through multiple services from SMART, Have Action, AA, CA, NA, to private councillors and hypnotherapists.

He said: “My family spent hundreds of pounds an hour on specialists, but nothing ever worked long term, I'd get so far and keep relapsing. Eventually I started to research and obsess over the science behind addiction and that is what helped me quit. I realised maybe if I share this information it will help other people.”

And so they did, in 2020 Marcus lost three of his friends after they took their own lives, which inspired him to join forces with Lee, cofounding Break Free, a support group helping people battling addiction.

Marcus said: “During lockdown when the services shut down, and the meetings closed, three people I know died, they took their own lives. It inspired us to start helping people on social media and before we knew it more and more people would reach out to us for help.

“At this time in lockdown you could walk round the park and that is how we started. We set up a ‘walk and talk.’ The first one we had six people and now we get 150 people every Saturday. We have helped hundreds of people stay off drink and drugs.”

Marcus added: “We have helped hundreds of people now. Doing this has given me a purpose, I have found something in life that I'm good at and I'm helping people and not hurting people. I now dedicate my life to getting people out of misery.”

Break Free supports people through addiction recovery such as drugs, alcohol and gambling. They also support clients who are suffering with their mental health. You can find out more about Break Free and their services here.